Pooh

I had a hand me down Pooh, just a stuffed bear, old realistically bearish stiff and worn. He was my Pooh, despite not quite looking like the soft golden Disney bear of my favorite, and first read, storybook in the shape of Pooh's head. "Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh are reading a funny story...." is how it started, and I knew it by heart including "Eeyore is in his gloomy place." I was taken to all the Pooh movies, and laughed, and sang "I'm just a little black rain-cloud"- (still do.) I had a View Master with a Pooh disk of slides, my favorite was a 3-D view of Pooh in the honey tree, golden honey all around him, his face in ecstasy, I would stare at that one slide, finding the brightest light to make the glow more golden, to understand it better, to seep myself in that tiny heaven.

For Pooh was as real to me as the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, God, Guardian Angel and the thing that would get me under the bed at night. And more real for his rarity in real life, he was going to be a vital lesson. Sears was introducing their Winnie the Pooh Collection of children's clothes, clothes we could never afford, nor that I wanted. But I needed to see Pooh, and he was coming. My mother promised, and one rainy night, we piled in the car (Could that have been the Studebaker?) and drove to Sears. Within sight of their sign, the car died. I could have walked there (I thought) it was so close (I told my mother) Please, just let me see Pooh, you promised! But a phone had to be found AAA called, the car fixed, and by then Pooh either would have been gone, or they were in no shape to deal with it in the dark and rain. I cried bitterly, despite assurances that I would get another chance, and she would take me. Life was not going to cooperate, my heart was broken, and I would never hope in quite the same way again.

So for the next appearance of Pooh, I refused to believe until I actually saw him. And when he appeared, my heart leapt, I grabbed hold of his paw, stared up at his honey-pot hat with the circling bee, and I did not let go until he shook my hand and patted my head, and gave me a hug at the end of his walk, and went through the doors to the back of the store. I soaked it in, and held this in my heart. My mother would tell the story, that shy little Z had taken her place boldly, that I barely spoke the rest of the day. She wasn't entirely sure I was pleased. I wasn't. I was transformed.

I would read the original Pooh stories myself when I worked at a local branch library in high school. I came to love the Shepard illustrations over the Disney flashiness. Pooh never left me. I would abandon the idea of faith- a gift I would never be given, and study Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism- eclectically picking out the gold without succumbing to the ceremony of their original cultures. And then read the Tao Of Pooh. Aha. The light came on.

And I would get the Winnie the Pooh books, read them to D who had not read them. He would find them on tape at the library, and we would listen to them at night, and laugh together.

One Christmas, D gave me a wonderful, bean filled bear, with dark intelligent eyes. I would move his head and paws so he could express himself in eloquent wordlessness. Sebastian became my inner bear, coming with us on trips, he would once placidly observe a cat getting into our car as we fixed a flat, the cat stared at him for a long time, then ran. Well, you never can tell with bears.

For now, the bear is sleeping in my life. As bears do. But I know not to confuse getting with hoping, when to patiently wait and when to reach out and grab, to find moments of perfect peace. And if I have honey AND condensed milk, I can forgo the bread.